Fostering DEI Initiatives for Your Members’ Careers

Organizations have shifted the way they look at diversity and inclusion. It’s been repeatedly shown that an inclusive workforce leads to greater innovation, better collaboration, and new ideas. As a job and career resource for your members, many of whom are job seekers, your association should foster diverse, equitable, and inclusive opportunities. 

So, let’s explore how your association can foster diversity, equity, and inclusion for your members’ careers. 

Drive DEI with career events 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are a hot topic for the recruitment industry, for good reason. The millennial generation (which now makes up 40 percent of the working population) is 44 percent more diverse than previous generations. The growing rate of diversity has created a cultural generation gap, making it more important than ever to have a strategy for growing inclusion with your organization. 

One of the best ways your association can foster diversity, equity, and inclusion is providing opportunities for leadership and career advancement to members of all backgrounds and abilities. Career events allow for connections to be made between leading industry employers and your association’s talented, diverse candidates.  

Here’s how to host a career event with DEI in mind: 

1. Branding your event

Ensure your event title and branding promote that the event is driven by diversity, equity, and inclusion. Use images that are inclusive and messaging that support your mission to advance your diverse members’ careers. 

2. Partner up

Consider partnering with an organization that also fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion. This could be a charity, educational system, or fellow association. You could even offer to donate a portion of the event profits to a charitable organization that also fosters DEI.

3. Invite a thought leader

Bring enriching content to your event by inviting a thought leader, who should have a powerful story or experience with DEI to share with your audience. Have your thought leader at their own booth, give a presentation, or simply provide a powerful speech. 

4. Socialize company initiatives

Make sure your members know the participating employers have strong diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Reach out via mail, email, social media, etc. before the event, showcasing the employers and highlighting each company’s DEI objectives.

5. Message from leadership

Place a welcome message as the kickoff to your event. We recommend a pre-recorded video unique for this audience and event. Seeing that leadership will take the time to send members a personalized message will go a long way in creating lifetime members. 

YM Careers, the largest job board provider in the association space, hosted a successful diversity career event in 2020. This event was geared towards students and early career professionals with The College Diversity Network. By the event’s end, diverse students from 190 colleges and universities connected with 23 of the nation’s top companies including NASA, Dell, and Deloitte. 

“Being part of the College Diversity Network Virtual Career Fair was an extremely rewarding experience. I saw many diverse candidates and students make connections they would not have made otherwise. Fostering diversity initiatives and connecting talent is a strong passion of mine, and these events have been critical to developing more connections.” -Fields Jackson Jr., event partner, Founder and CEO of Racing Toward Diversity Magazine

If you want to support diversity employment for your members in the coming months, career fairs are an excellent source for diverse talent. Employers can meet with dozens of interested job seekers in a few hours, resulting in promising candidates ready to fill open roles.   

Learn more about driving diversity through virtual career events. 

Ensure your job board stacks up to the latest recruitment trends 

Recruitment patterns continue to change the way associations and employers recruit members and job seekers. In 2019, 78 percent of employers used job boards for their online recruitment needs. In 2020, as companies shifted talent acquisition and onboarding to a completely digital format, even more employers turned to the tools and features available on your association’s job board for finding niche talent. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the forefront of the latest recruitment trends. As refined artificial intelligence (AI) gains a stronger presence in recruitment, employers are turning to resume banks and matching software for building and maintaining talent pools. Your career center provides access to quality resumes and relevant filters allowing employers to build a talent pipeline for a proactive sourcing strategy. The anonymity of the resume bank enables employers to search for qualified candidates while eliminating unconscious bias.  

According to Indeed, the number of job postings related to diversity and inclusion increased by almost 20 percent between 2017 and 2018. This continues to trend upward, and it’s no secret why – organizations (employers and associations alike) with more culturally and ethnically diverse management boards are 43 percent more likely to generate higher profits.  

To keep up with the latest trends, and make better informed and strategic decisions, you should become a data-driven organization.  To enhance your member experience, improve your overall operations, and anticipate future needs, you need insight into your association. Data analytics is no longer limited to IT departments or just a select few at the association!